𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗜𝗻 𝗢𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼/𝗤𝘂𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗰 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯

The pictures above show a few of the areas that have been purchased by mining corporations and what they intend on doing with that land starting this year.

The Boreal Forest and the body of our Mother Earth is being assaulted in northern Ontario and Quebec. Over 217,000 Hectares of forest, lakes and rivers have been purchased by lithium mining corporations that intend to clear cut and carve in open pit mines into the bones of our Mother Earth in northern Ontario and Quebec (I provide a breakdown of which companies have purchased what land below).

Hard rock lithium mining involves deforestation, draining lakes and rivers, blowing the land into pieces with explosives, carving deep gashes into the Earth with giant machines, using truckloads of industrial solvents like sulfuric acid (resulting in water contamination with toxic sludge) dragging that processed rubble to processing facilities with fleets of heavy machinery then processing the ore with extremely high energy furnaces using another slew of toxic chemicals (which further contaminate the water table, lakes, rivers and ocean elsewhere).

To extract one ton of lithium, you need to contaminate approximately 500,000 gallons of water. Lithium mining also destroys the soil structure and leads to unsustainable water table reduction. In the end, it depletes water resources, leaving the land too dry and exposing ecosystems to the risk of extinction.

The long term results are water loss, ground destabilisation, biodiversity loss, increased salinity of rivers, contaminated soil, massive co-2 emissions and toxic waste. Some of the most common lithium mining wastes are sulfuric acid discharge and the radioactive uranium byproduct (which leaches into the ground water, streams, rivers and lakes). They can cause various forms of cancer and diseases. The mining also presents other serious problems like large amounts of lime and magnesium wastes.

As Lithium extraction causes surface water contamination, it also destroys other water sources. So, it’s also responsible for the creation of toxic rain. The water cycle largely depends on the limited forests. The trees extract underground water and release it into the atmosphere for this process to continue. Therefore, lithium mining hinders the water cycle from providing adequate rainfall in the affected areas. The impacts are severe. The long term result will be increased regional droughts, soil erosion and the risk of desertification.

The entire lithium extraction process contributes to a massive increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Lithium miners cut down trees and remove all other life forms from their targeted mining areas to eliminate obstructions.

Strip mining and deforestation is not something that can be undone. It means the decimation of ancient diverse ecosystems, the poisoning of the sacred waters and extinction of species and so there is nothing "sustainable", "renewable" or "green" about it.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗥𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯:

1- Ultra Lithium - intends to destroy 2,416+ hectares of land around Forgan Lake and Georgia Lake (near Thunder Bay, Ontario).

2- International lithium corporation - intends to destroy 47,700 hectares (477 square kilometers) of boreal forest around Raleigh Lake (located near Ignace, Ontario)

3- Fairservice Lithium - intends to destroy 2,544 hectares of boreal forest around Mavis Lake, Ontario

4- Peggy Group - intends to destroy 7,386 hectares of boreal forest located about 80km north of Sioux Lookout, in the province of Ontario.

5- Rock Edge - intends to destroy 6378 hectares of boreal forest (in their combined "Maun" and "Terrier" properties) between the East Wabigoon and English River, in Ontario.

6- The Hearst Project - intends to destroy 29,805 hectares of land located roughly 15 kilometers south of Hearst, Ontario.

7- Frontier Lithium’s PAK Project (involving Green Technology Metals corporation)- intends to destroy 67,800 hectares of boreal forest near Red Lake (with two subsidiary projects called "Seymour" and "Root").

8- Vancouver’s "Lithium One Metals" and Critical Elements Corporation - intend to destroy 53,000+ hectares (530 km2) of boreal forest in Northern Ontario and the James Bay side of Quebec.

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This is not a comprehensive list, there are many more mines planned for the areas listed above (and all over Canada in the Boreal Forest zone). I just got emotionally exhausted after spending half a day reading the lithium mining companies press releases where they were bragging about having rights to begin blasting the land to pieces soon for profit (and bragging about having paid off the locals and having made them sign binding contracts so they cannot complain about environmental/health damages in future years).

The boreal forest is teeming with life (containing about two thirds of Canada's 140 000 species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms.) To describe it, let's begin with the trees that make up the forest canopy. There are about 20 species of them (including but not limited to Spruce, fir, pine, and tamarack, trembling aspen, balsam poplar, birch and more). The boreal plays a critical role in how the planet breathes through the process of photosynthesis. By extension, it also shapes the composition of the atmosphere, which today includes maintaining 21 percent of the life supporting concentrations of oxygen in our atmosphere. The impact of the forest is so significant that global levels of carbon dioxide, actually drop significantly in spring and summer when it is growing most.

For those concerned about carbon levels in the atmosphere, preserving the integrity of the Boreal Forest should be a top priority. The boreal forest soaks up more carbon than it emits. The boreal is also cold. Thus, when trees die, they decompose slowly, keeping carbon in their bodies relatively longer than dead trees in tropical forests, which rot swiftly and release large amounts of carbon. The cold also keeps the boreal’s permafrost frozen, trapping carbon-rich methane, underneath the surface of the soil. As well, much of the boreal is dotted with marshy peatland, another efficient storage facility for carbon.

The boreal forest shelters more than 85 species of mammals, including some of the largest and most majestic—wood bison, elk, moose, woodland caribou, grizzly and black bears, and wolves—and smaller species, such as beavers, snowshoe hares, Canada lynx, red squirrels, lemmings, and voles.

Nearly half of the birds in North America rely on the boreal forest at some time during the year. It is estimated that at least 3 billion landbirds, water birds, and shorebirds breed in the boreal forest each year, representing more than 300 species. Another 300 million birds, including several species of shorebirds, swans, and geese, breed farther north and travel through the boreal forest during migration. It is estimated that 32 000 insect species inhabit Canada's boreal forest, although about one third of these species have yet to be described. Canada's boreal forest is home to about 130 species of fish (including minnows, stickleback and Larger species such as including walleye, northern pike, lake trout, Arctic grayling, yellow perch, brook trout, whitefish and burbot).

It is worth re-iterating that Hard rock lithium mining involves deforestation, draining lakes and rivers, blowing the land into pieces with explosives, carving deep gashes into the Earth with giant machines, using truckloads of industrial solvents like sulfuric acid (resulting in water contamination with toxic sludge) dragging that processed rubble to processing facilities with fleets of heavy machinery then processing the ore with extremely high energy demanding furnaces using another slew of toxic chemicals (which further contaminate the water table, lakes, rivers and ocean elsewhere).

In order to illustrate the potential for catastrophic harm to ecosystems and human health that these mines pose I present a cautionary tale: The Liqi River was once full of fish: Almost none are left. Chemical spills from the Ganzizhou Rongda lithium mine have killed many. “The whole river stank, and it was full of dead yaks and dead fish,” said one villager.: “Masses” of dead fish covered the river. The people got the mine shut down three times, only to have the government reopen it. One of the elders said, “Old people, we see the mines and we cry. What are the future generations going to do? How are they going to survive?”A local activist surveyed people in the area. Even if mining companies split the profits and promised to repair the land after the mines are exhausted, the Tibetans wanted no part of it. “God is in the mountains and the rivers, these are the places that spirits live,” he explained.” “sustainable development” technology (Lithium battery tech) offers everything: every luxury, every whim, available at the touch of a ‘carbon-free’ button. But the world that these technologies provide will be a rotting, desecrated, and, finally, dead world if we let them continue on their crusade to turn the living world into dead things, for profit and to perpetuate our obscene technologically addicted human “civilization”.

In the concentrations extracted via industrial mining operations, lithium is harmful to living beings. It interferes with sperm viability, causes birth defects, memory problems, kidney failure, movement disorders, and so on. Other materials in an electric-car battery can be even more harmful than lithium, with nickel and cobalt electrodes being the most destructive component.

As I covered in a past post, about half of the cobalt used in lithium batteries comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 40,000 children as young as four are essentially enslaved in mines, carrying backbreaking loads in conditions of intense heat, with no safety equipment, under abusive managers and guards, for a wage of a dollar a day.

Here in Canada, we may end up paying our cobalt miners more money and they may be wearing steel toes and hat hats, but the impacts on the ecosystem will be just as devastating.

There’s no circumventing the fact that these energy-storage technologies are fundamentally destructive. And they're dependent on a global supply chain and advanced manufacturing technologies that, themselves, are fundamentally destructive. Machines making machines making machines; and while more and more hyperbolic "green" headlines are written, the planet is being killed.

Next on the hit list for corporate pillaging in the name of "sustainability" is the Boreal Forest.

As described above, our corrupt corporation captured government is helping to initiate large projects to pillage the lands of indigenous peoples (Cree of Eeyou Istchee, the Shakopaatikoong peoples of the Slate Falls first nation and the Waabitigweyaang peoples of Sandy Lake, among others ) and the body of Mother Earth in new Lithium (cobalt and tantalum) mines in northern Ontario and Quebec.

Given the nature of open pit mining, lithium leeching ponds and lithium refining, the inevitable result will be large scale poisoning of the water table and the ocean in James bay, contamination of the great lakes (through lake Superior, moving downstream into all the other great lakes), deforestation and genocide of local wildlife.

These corporations intend to clear cut the boreal forest, annihilating the little bit of remaining habitat that exists in Ontario for the moose, caribou, the lynx, bears, the mountain lion, wolves, fox, bobcats, eagles, hawks and countless other winged and four legged beings will be forcibly displaced from their homes (inevitably resulting in many of them attempting to return to their homes only to starve while pacing near the fences or to be poisoned by the toxins these mines produce).

The fish in the lakes, the whales and countless other beings in James bay, they will all be decimated by these projects.

These corporations appear to be moving in fast and as quiet as possible (paying off locals with bribes along the way and getting them to sign binding agreements) to avoid local and environmentalist resistance.

These projects will mean we trade blood for lithium so we can have fun i-pads and electric cars to play with. We will be trading the ancient beauty and majesty of the Boreal forest and all it's inhabitants for smart phones and tesla cars. I can't help but ask myself this question... Is it really worth it?

In closing, I would like to humbly remind you that Each time you make a choice that nourishes, respects and enriches the living Earth, you are nourishing, respecting and enriching yourself... and each time you make a choice that degrades, harms and pillages her, you are degrading, harming and pillaging yourself.

Those that wish to walk a path guided by any kind of honest moral compass (including but not limited to the permaculture ethical imperative of People Care-Earth Care-Future Care) are going to have to make some hard choices in the coming years if we want our actions to continue to align with the principles we espouse and claim to live by.

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